Contemporary life tends to be hectic, alienating, and often leaving many people without a sense of support in the natural processes of exercise, rest and recuperation. Many, if not most, of us, do not have access to gymnasiums, massages, acupuncture, and other exemplary systems and activities that improve our lives through exercise, rest and recuperation. Even those who do have access, often face substantial expense in using these capabilities. People need inexpensive avenues supporting and/or augmenting exercise, rest and recuperation.
In the United States, there is a large population of people who were born in the late 1940's through the early 1960's. These people were nicknamed the “baby boomers”, or now as they age, the “boomers”. In 2005, their oldest are turning 60, and in five years, they turn 65. For seven decades, society provided substantial medical and social aid at that age. The projections are that the boomers will bankrupt the medical and social aid infrastructure by around 2015. Aging individuals will need inexpensive techniques and mechanisms to support or improve their health outside the existing medical infrastructure, if they are to receive aid and the society of this country is to have any chance of averting a medical, fiscal, and humanitarian crisis.
Today, there are literally millions, if not tens of millions, of lightweight, wearable music/multimedia players being used by people every day. All these players support at least one audio output channel, and quite often two audio channels. Most of these players are capable of delivering enough volume to head phones that the music they play can be heard over the noise of trains, traffic, and the like. Their main benefit to people is that they permit individuals some control over what they hear. These devices have not been harnessed to improve people's health.